Referencias

Descripción

State Policy Network – Wikipedia , 31/01/2012 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Policy_Network
“SPN was founded in 1992 by Thomas A. Roe, a South Carolina businessman and Republican Party activist who also served as a member of the board of trustees of the Heritage Foundation and had in 1986 founded the South Carolina Policy Council, now an SPN member group.[2][3][4] Roe was concerned that the program of “New Federalism” fostered under U.S.”

Heritage Foundation Offshoots Seek to Influence State Legislation – Responsive Philanthropy, 21/03/1991 – http://desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Special Report – Burgeoning Conservative Think Tanks.pdf
“We simply will not have power on the national level until we declare war on state legislatures, declared Don E. Eberly, president of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, Harrisburg, PA, in an address before the Heritage Foundation. Eberly’s think tank is one of some 55 public policy institutes that have sprung up in 29 states in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan’s “new federalism.” While the think tanks share a strong free market, anti-government philosophy, they represent a mix of Goldwater conservatism, libertarianism and New Right ideology. State level think tanks provide the rationale and local spin needed to win over sympathetic legislators to the conservative agenda. Patterned after the Heritage Foundation, their materials are often in the form of brief policy backgrounders (‘For people with limited time and a need to know,” as the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas puts it), which are widely circulated to the media, elected officials, business leaders and government agencies. Books and videotapes are also produced, and many maintain a speakers’ bureau.”

Steve Horn – Stink Tanks: Historical Records Reveal State Policy Network Was Created by ALEC – Desmogblog, 09/12/2013 – http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/12/09/stink-tanks-historical-records-reveal-state-policy-network-created-alec
“A 1991 report tracked down by DeSmogBlog from the University of California-San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents reveals that the State Policy Network (SPN) was created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), raising additional questions over both organizations’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) non-profit tax status. Titled ‘Special Report: Burgeoning Conservative Think Tanks’ and published by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the report states that State Policy Network’s precursor — the Madison Group — was ‘launched by the American Legislative Exchange Council and housed in the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.’.”

John J. Miller – Fifty Flowers Bloom – National Review, 19/11/2007 – http://www.heymiller.com/2009/09/fifty-flowers-bloom/
The late South Carolina businessman Thomas A. Roe, an occasional member of Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet,” supported this trend, but also anticipated a new challenge: Bureaucrats in Albany, Austin, and Sacramento weren’t necessarily better than those in Washington. In a conversation with Reagan, Roe mentioned that there ought to be an effort to keep them honest — something like a Heritage Foundation in each of the states. The president replied with a suggestion: “Do something about it.” Roe took his advice. In 1986, he founded the South Carolina Policy Council. Around the same time, similar groups were forming in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, and elsewhere. They began to meet at the Madison Hotel in Washington and called themselves the Madison Group. In 1992, Roe bankrolled the creation of the State Policy Network, an umbrella organization to help them grow.”

“Acknowledging the group’s political power, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin called the SPN member Idaho Freedom Foundation a ‘do’ tank [ref].Darcy Olsen, president and CEO of SPN member think tank the Goldwater Institute, told the National Review, ‘We’re in the business of applied policy [ref].’ Applied policy appears to translate to changing state laws. Although most do not register lobbyists, many SPN members advance legislation through ALEC and outside of ALEC. They are in frequent communication with members of the legislature and have exerted strong influence on changes to state laws.”

Rebecah Wilce – SPN: Right-Wing Stink Tanks Pushing the ALEC Agenda in the States – PR Watch, 22/11/2013 – http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/04/11909/reporters%E2%80%99-guide-%E2%80%9Cstate-policy-network%E2%80%9D-right-wing-think-tanks-spinning-disinform
“Introducing One of the Key Echo Chambers of the ALEC Agenda: Tracie Sharp’s SPN … Its purpose? To produce reports, create statistics, draft talking points and “expert” testimony in support of bills, and disseminate videos along with a raft of other materials to advance a right-wing legislative agenda in the states, under the guise of being a nonpartisan, nonprofit charitable organization full of neutral scholars and academics. But these are not academics in an ivory tower. These think tanks actually write legislation; they write materials to support their legislation; and they work closely with legislators and sometimes throw their voice through legislative talking points. They also often take to the airwaves and the Internet to give purportedly objective analysis. Their legislative agenda, often ratified via ALEC, is frequently adopted as law by states controlled by ALEC majorities — often with little or no disclosure of their role in the process.”

Lee Fang – The Right Leans In – The Investigative Fund, 28/03/2013 – Nation Institute – http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1768/the_right_leans_in
“State Policy Network’s organizations have also operated as fronts for corporations seeking to cloak their business interests under an ideological veneer. The Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy, a Pennsylvania-based affiliate of SPN that is pushing to pass right-to-work legislation, is financed in part by the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, a lobbying group that represents US Steel, Hershey Foods, Sun Oil and many smaller firms. “

“’This is a battle we can win, and we are winning in many places around the country,’ DeMint told the assembled donors confidently. He implored them to look beyond Washington, DC, and see that conservatives were scoring victories in state after state … in the 2012 elections, Republicans retained a thirty-three-seat majority in the House despite Democrats earning 1.3 million more votes for their candidates.”

“Tim Phillips, the national head of Americans for Prosperity and a close adviser to David Koch, has been clear about his intention to make the most out of the Republicans’ state-level gains. Speaking at a recent press conference in Indianapolis, he declared: ‘We see a debate going on at the state level that is really going to define the nation.’.”

Paul Blumenthal – Meet The Little-Known Network Pushing Ideas For Kochs, ALEC – The Huffington Post – 14/11/2013 – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/state-policy-network-kochs_n_4275899.html
“The State Policy Network itself has had tremendous influence, and they have had very little public scrutiny about who they are and what interests they really represent,” Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, said. “They describe themselves in a given state as a nonpartisan independent group or as a think tank academic study group, and, in fact, these groups are very active politically. Many of them are very active before the state legislatures, and a lot of the work they’re doing is very biased and unreliable.”

EXPOSED: The State Policy Network – Center for Media and Democracy, 11/2013 – http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf
“While SPN is a national organization with 63 affiliates and over 100 associate members, it remains a closely connected network. It is not uncommon for think tank members to share board members, ‘scholars,’ or staffers, nor is it uncommon for the think tanks to share research materials, coordinating their agenda and tailoring national research to fit into state-related politics. One example is a “report” advocating for so-called ‘right to work’ legislation.”

Jane Mayer – Is Ikea The New Model For The Conservative Movement? – The New Yorker – 15/11/2013 – http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement.html
“Sharp went on to say that, like IKEA, the central organization would provide ‘the raw materials,’ along with the “services” needed to assemble the products. Rather than acting like passive customers who buy finished products, she wanted each state group to show the enterprise and creativity needed to assemble the parts in their home states. ‘Pick what you need,’ she said, ‘and customize it for what works best for you.’.”

Financiación

Rebekah Wilce – The State Policy Network’s Cozy Relationship with Big Tobacco – PR Watch – 16/12/2013 – – http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12316/state-policy-networks-cozy-relationship-big-tobacco
“SPN, its member affiliates, and SPN-related entities such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, continued to receive funding from the tobacco industry that has continued through at least 2012, according to Altria/Phillip Morris documents. The Nation journalist Lee Fang previously reported that SPN relied on funding from the tobacco industry throughout the 1990s, and in return assisted the tobacco industry ‘in packaging its resistance to tobacco taxes and health regulations as part of a ‘freedom agenda’ for conservatives.’.”

EXPOSED: The State Policy Network – Center for Media and Democracy, 11/2013 – http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf
“That SPN event included apparatchiks such as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s controversial pro-torture chief of staff David Addington – who is now with the increasingly aggressive Heritage Foundation – as well as representatives from Koch Industries, the Charles Koch Institute, and Charles Koch Foundation, and other the Koch-funded groups such as David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, Generation Opportunity, and the Association for American Innovation, which is now called “Freedom Partners” and is funded to an unknown extent by the fortunes of the billionaire Koch brothers, housed in the same building as other Koch front groups, staffed by Koch operatives, and stacked with a board full of Koch insiders.”

“It appears that SPN and its member think tanks were listening, as cash from Big Tobacco to SPN continues to flow. In 2012, Altria (formerly Philip Morris) listed SPN and 21 member think tanks as recipients of corporate “charitable” contributions (which it calls “business directed giving”), although the corporation does not disclose the amount of the contributions [ref]. The Center for Media and Democracy has discovered that Altria/Philip Morris and Reynolds American contributed a total of $105,000 to SPN alone in 2010 [ref]. Industry documents made publicly available by the 1998 Master Tobacco Agreement between the Attorney Generals of 46 states and the nation’s five major tobacco companies and two tobacco industry associations show that SPN think tanks have been recipients of funding from Big Tobacco dating back to the early 1990s [ref]. In turn, many SPN think tanks often advocate against raising tobacco and excise taxes and work to defeat smoking bans.”

“The largest known funder behind SPN and its member think tanks are two closely related funds – DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. Exposed in Mother Jones as the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement,” [ref]the Donors groups are spin-offs of the Philanthropy Roundtable run by SPN board member Whitney L. Ball [ref]. They are what are called “donor-advised funds,” which means that the fund creates separate accounts for individual donors, and the donors then recommend disbursements from the accounts to different non-profits. It cloaks the identity of the original mystery donors or makes it impossible to connect donors with recipients because the funds are then distributed in the name of DT or DCF. For example, a relatively unknown Koch family foundation called the Knowledge and Progress Fund gave $4.5 million to DonorsTrust between 2007 and 2010, but what organizations received that funding from Donors is unknown [ref].”

Joshua Schwitzerlett – Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T and Others Supporting Right Wing Propaganda Machine – Ring of Fire Radio, 18/11/2013 – http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/11/facebook-microsoft-att-others-supporting-right-wing-propaganda-machine/
“The report further outlined that the group has an annual budget of $83.2 million which comes primarily from major donors. These donors include AT&T, Time Warner, Verizon, Altria, Kraft, GlaxoSmithKline, Facebook and Microsoft, among others. In defense of its position, Tracie Sharp, the president of the SPN, stated that the network provides ‘State-based, free-market think-tanks with the academic and management resources required to run a non-profit institution. … every think-tank, however, rallies around a common belief: the power of free markets and free people to create a healthy, prosperous society.’.”

Lee Fang – The Right Leans In – The Investigative Fund, 28/03/2013 – Nation Institute – http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1768/the_right_leans_in/
“Financial support for SPN-affiliated think tanks has increased by tens of millions of dollars over the last four years, disclosures show. In areas with the most concentrated investments, particularly the Midwestern states referred to in DeMint’s speech, budgets for state-level political groups have doubled, outpacing their counterparts on the left. Without control of the White House, corporations anxious to push back against taxes and regulations, along with a cadre of wealthy right-wing donors, have invested in these state-level think tanks, partisan media outlets, training institutes and online advocacy efforts. Some existing organizations have been expanded, and others founded to fill what conservative planners viewed as a tactical void. “

“At a 2001 meeting for SPN, Sharp invited Joshua Slavitt, Philip Morris’s director of external affairs, to give a talk. ‘I know that many of you have worked with Philip Morris,’ Slavitt said, according to a prepared text, adding: “It won’t surprise you that we believe it is in our enlightened self-interest to be part of the policy discussions that ultimately shape the environment in which we do business.” He ended his speech with specific recommendations for SPN leaders in requesting corporate contributions.”

Posicionamiento politico

Ed Pilkington and Suzanne Goldenberg – State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax – The Guardian, 05/12/2013 – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/state-conservative-groups-assault-education-health-tax
“The proposals in the grant bids contained in the Guardian documents go beyond a commitment to free enterprise, however. They include: • ‘reforms’ to public employee pensions raised by SPN think-tanks in Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; • tax elimination or reduction schemes in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Nebraska and New York; • an education voucher system to promote private and home schooling in Florida; • campaigns against worker and union rights in Delaware and Nevada; • opposition to Medicaid in Georgia, North Carolina and Utah. SPN’s president, Tracie Sharp, told the Guardian that ‘as a pro-freedom network of think-tanks, we focus on issues like workplace freedom, education reform, and individual choice in healthcare: backbone issues of a free people and a free society.’.”

Andy Kroll – The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions – Mother Jones, 25/04/2011 – http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining
“From New Hampshire to Alaska, Republican lawmakers are waging war on organized labor. They’re pushing bills to curb, if not eliminate, collective bargaining for public workers; make it harder for unions to collect member dues; and, in some states, allow workers to opt out of joining unions entirely but still enjoy union-won benefits. All told, it’s one of the largest assaults on American unions in recent history. Behind the onslaught is a well-funded network of conservative think tanks that you’ve probably never heard of. Conceived by the same conservative ideologues who helped found the Heritage Foundation, the State Policy Network (SPN) is a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement. Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases.”

“Happening as it did in the cradle of private-sector union activism, this was perhaps the crowning achievement of the state-based conservative movement. (The Taft-Hartley Act allows states to enact right-to-work laws, which quickly erode unions by allowing workers to benefit from union contracts and negotiations without having to pay dues.).”

Connor Gibson – State Policy Network, an umbrella coordinating ALEC, Heritage, Heartland and others – My FDL, 04/04/2013 – http://my.firedoglake.com/cgibson/2013/04/04/state-policy-network/
“Through State Policy Network, these seemingly disparate entities coordinate their current attacks on unions, clean energy policies, and numerous other issues that are ultimately funded by a small group of American billionaires, millionaires and multinational corporations.”

Actividades

Wiki – Roe Award – Wikipedia, 29/12/2011 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_Award
“The Roe Award is an annual award given by the State Policy Network that ‘pays tribute to those in the state public policy movement whose achievements have greatly advanced the free market philosophy‘ and ‘recognizes leadership, innovation and accomplishment in public policy. ‘ [ref] Established in 1992, it is named after the late founder of the State Policy Network, Thomas. A. Roe, Jr.”

Lee Fang – The Right Leans In – The Investigative Fund, 28/03/2013 – Nation Institute – http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1768/the_right_leans_in/
“A key area of growth among state-level conservative think tanks involves efforts to develop nonprofit media. Founded in 2009, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity has partnered with SPN and Americans for Prosperity to hire and train conservative reporters in nearly every state capital … The head of the Franklin Center, a former executive director of the North Dakota Republican Party, boasted that by 2011, the group had hired more than 100 journalists in forty-four states — virtually all of them placed at SPN-affiliated think tanks. In Tennessee, it hired an award-winning journalist, Clint Brewer, for over a year, while in Hawaii and other states, its affiliates ran multiple stories questioning Obama’s birth certificate. ”

“MediaTrackers.org’s founder, Drew Ryun, the son of former Republican Congressman Jim Ryun, calls his group an ‘attack bloc component.’ As he explained at an event with Sharp: ‘For so long, we as a conservative movement have thought good ideas will win the day. Nothing could be further from the truth. ‘ Ryun added that public opinion could be shaped with technology like ‘search engine optimization” as well as with “a little bit of pushing back and punching back.” Before Ryun started working at MediaTrackers.org, his group American Majority had been training Tea Party activists to manipulate the rating systems on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Amazon and create lower ratings for left-leaning movies and books. ‘Literally 80 percent of the books I put a star on, I don’t read, ‘ said a staff member at an American Majority training session. ‘That’s how you control the online dialogue.‘.”

Otros

Lee Fang – The Right Leans In – The Investigative Fund, 28/03/2013 – Nation Institute – http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1768/the_right_leans_in/
“Other conservative leaders have spoken even more glowingly of the way that state-level political investments can shape the future of conservatism. ‘We have, us fellow warriors for liberty, a rendezvous with destiny,’ said Henry Olsen, an American Enterprise Institute vice president, at a meeting of conservative think tank leaders last November at the Ritz-Carlton resort on Amelia Island, Florida. ‘Reagan’s generation did too, and their task was to plant the tree of liberty in the garden of Roosevelt. Our task is to protect that tree against the gales and gusts of Hurricane Barack, and to help nurture that tree so that it grows into a grove and forest.’At the same event, Grover Norquist proclaimed that with SPN’s support, Republican governors might ‘turn their states into Texas or Hong Kong’ — laboratories of the free market. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity,’ he added.”

“As far as local labor activists like Brett Banditelli (who also produces the Rick Smith radio show in Harrisburg) are concerned, their side is already overwhelmed. The Franklin Center’s Pennsylvania Independent “doesn’t have much readership, but does an incredible job of setting the tone on attacks on unions before the attacks come,” says Banditelli, who notes the Legislature might first go after union pensions before changing any membership or collective bargaining rules. Banditelli says labor has been slow to adapt to the changing media environment, and teachers and workers now stand defenseless. ”